Kudos for Genius Kubrick

To the Editors:

Sure Marisa Berenson has a pretty face, but why run her as an "overbred, vacuous, giggly and lazy" cover subject [Dec. 15] when the true fanfare belongs to Stanley Kubrick, the most innovative person to touch motion pictures since Thomas A. Edison?

Mary Ellen Mulcahy

Shrewsbury, Mass.

Stanley Kubrick is a cinematic Shakespeare. And I think he knows it.

Phyllis A. Ekins

Hudson, Pa.

Thank God Stanley Kubrick has come back to rescue all us tired victims drowning in the current movie trend. It will be a joy to see art once more. I promise to treat myself to Barry Lyndon five times. That's what it will take to wash away my sorrows for having wasted $3.50 on Jaws.

Malia P. Lunday

Huntington Beach, Calif.

Stanley Kubrick: proof that there are living geniuses.

Kelly J. Smith

Kempton, Ill.

I am in Stanley Kubrick's new film Barry Lyndon where I play Marisa Berenson's son, Lord Bullingdon. I was very upset when I saw my picture in TIME with Marisa with another boy's name there. I am so disappointed because it is such a beautiful picture.

Dominic Savage, age 12

Kent, England

Ford's Useful Function

Your Essay on how we pick our leaders [Dec. 15] reminds us of the useful function President Ford is serving. Just as Nixon caused us to look for honesty in government, Ford is prompting us to say, "Can't we do better than this?"

Jack Colby

Sonoma, Calif.

Thank you for reminding us that our presidential choice is not restricted to Dum-Dum and Tweedledum.

Percy Crosby

Chevy Chase, Md.

Yes, let's have a look at new faces. Let's not, however, consider the corporate executives whose golden rule has been the unlimited productivity, profits and economic growth that have led us to the brink of environmental collapse.

Virginia Mudd Madden

Alamo, Calif.

Your Essay suggests this ad: Help Wanted: President of U.S. Experience necessary, preferably as president of large educational institution or international corporation, bank president or "charismatic and influential American." Mayors and military personnel also considered. Women Need Not Apply.

Angela R. Aresco

New York City

Nuclear Comfort

I found M.I.T.'s once-in-a-million-years odds against a nuclear power plant holocaust [Dec. 8] comforting--until I realized that a million years also includes tomorrow!

Carl Wish

Caracas

Body Shops

I found your article on the body shops [Dec. 15] disheartening. It seems ludicrous for law enforcement officers to devote so much effort to cracking down on a harmless exercise that prostitutes and their clients have been pursuing for thousands of years. It would seem more sensible merely to tax these operations at a fairly high rate.

John S. Connolly III

Washington, D.C.

Prohibition didn't work for liquor in the '20s, and it won't work for sex in the '70s. Leave the consenting adults alone and worry about the nonconsenting ones (rape, robbery and murder).

Mary Tidwell

South Daytona, Fla.

Do those massage parlors do any harm to anybody? Why are you Americans still not willing to let an adult citizen do whatsoever he wants as long as it doesn't collide with the personal freedom of his fellow citizens?

Karl H. Mauk Jr.

Vienna

We Also Shovel

I work in a mine [Dec. 15] that employs approximately 40 women underground. The women are expected to do the same work as men, and if they cannot they are dismissed.

I work on a form crew. We build forms for concrete and tear them down. Some women work on mine crews that chill and blast, and some are mechanics and welders. We also shovel.

Marsha Dutmers

Breckenridge, Colo.

Segregated Academies

Could you possibly stop reminding the South of the Civil War long enough to comment on the prevalence of private segregated academies [Dec. 15] in the rest of our country?

Since a large portion of our money goes to the Government to be spent in ways that we do not always favor, I see no reason why the remainder should not be spent in educating our children as we see fit in places where they will be safe, well-educated and exposed to the religious beliefs we favor--without our being made to feel guilty about not supporting public education.

Elizabeth W. Hill

Birmingham

Little David, public education, is now endangered by a big, bad Goliath, private schools? Come off it!

You surely remember which of the two our taxes support, or do you deliberately desire to promote paranoia?

George S. Lauderdale

Atlanta

Unerring Pat

Daniel Patrick Moynihan [Dec. 8] is the right man in the right job at the right time. Far from being a "shoot-from-the-hip Wyatt Earp," he is an unerring marksman, judging from the cries of pain from his targets.

As an American resident of three so-called Third World nations during the past eight years, I am convinced that Ambassador Moynihan's representation of U.S. national interests is eloquent and effective. He is merely stating publicly what many of our career diplomats believe privately but are reluctant to express for fear of controversy that might result and its alleged effect on "good relations."

Guy W. Farmer

Bogota

Farewell, World

Re "Ford's Duty Trip to Peking" [Dec. 1]: to hell with Russia, China, the Middle East and the U.N. Close the doors and return to isolationism. Get this divided country unified into the great nation it is.

Robert E. Carter Jr.

Portland, Me.

Crime and Punishment

Don't you think that now the South Moluccan terrorists have killed innocent people [Dec. 22], they should be admitted to the United Nations as Yasser Arafat was?

Stephanie Becker Mamaroneck, N. Y.

Shields and Spears

I have a timesaving idea: Why don't we speed up the course of the National Football League's [Dec. 8] apparent evolution by next year giving all defensive linemen battle-axes and maces and all offensive linemen shields and spears and throw out the football since it only got in the way.

Then sound the trumpets, drop the handkerchiefs, and cheer the carnage while American Football, Character and Sportsmanship burn.

Paul Shrode

Medellin, Colombia

The Real Thing

Although Delacroix never visited America, as Robert Hughes noted in "Arcadian Vision" [Dec. 15], he painted Indians from real Amerinds who were brought to France in 1834 by the American painter George Catlin. Not only did Delacroix see and paint these noble savages, but they received an audience with King Louis Philippe. Unfortunately, these Indians died in Europe as a result of exposure to the white man's diseases.

George M. Cohen

Hempstead, N. Y.

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